


Proposition

by ReallyEleanor



Series: What She Wanted [3]
Category: The NUMA Files - Clive Cussler
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:34:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReallyEleanor/pseuds/ReallyEleanor
Summary: The character of Eleanor and the circumstances leading to the conversation are from myWhat She Wantedstories.
Relationships: Joe Zavala/Original Character
Series: What She Wanted [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609267





	Proposition

By the time it was eleven p.m., Eleanor had translated the parts of the document that dealt with the pump and the lubricant. She’d been working since about nine a.m., and tomorrow was a work day for her 'day job.' She was sitting at the desk with Joe Zavala, watching him turn her words into a working engineering drawing, answering his questions about the specifications.

“Joe, do you have what you need from this?” She was exhausted and just wanted her bed.

“We should be done soon. Why?” He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the diagram he’d drawn. 

“I’m tired. I need to get some sleep so I can go to work in the morning. Very early in the morning.” She sucked in a deep breath to try to wake herself up.

Joe knew she hadn't shown up until after eight. “You slept in this morning. Didn’t you get your eight hours of zzzs?” He still wasn’t looking at her.

“No. I don’t sleep well. I wake up at least once in the night most nights.” She yawned, emphasizing her point.

“I know something that would help with that.” Finally, Joe looked up and smiled at her, one of the smiles he used when he was pursuing a woman. “Sex puts me to sleep. Maybe that’ll work for you.”

“It would be nice to roll over and find a man in my bed.” She didn’t smile back. “And you’re volunteering to help me with that?” What she knew of Joe's background, of course he'd offer. He was notorious in Washington for his exploits with women. Lots of women.

“Of course.” Joe was honest. He liked women and he liked sex. Eleanor was a possibility he'd happily consider. It looked like she had a nice figure and he enjoyed talking to her. He did like strong women. Well, he liked all women, but strong women were a challenge he enjoyed. 

“You’re a player, aren’t you, Joe?” She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. Rueful, maybe?

“Nah, not a player.” He shook his head and sat back, a lusty smile on his face. “I prefer ‘connoisseur.’ Expert on women.” The women he dated and slept with knew the score going in. He wasn’t going to get involved beyond the superficial level. They’d have a good time, then move on.

“If we did sleep together, you think it would be good?” she asked honestly.

Was she saying yes? His voice lowered and sounded seductive. “Oh, yeah.” He moved a little closer to her and murmured, “Really good,” still with the lusty smile. He always did what he needed to do to make sure his partner enjoyed it at least as much as he did. And he always enjoyed it.

“I’m sure you’re right, Joe. For you, it would be.” Her voice changed. “For me, I’m not so sure.” Deep breath. It was hard to remember this, but he needed to understand her 'no.' “I started university when I was fifteen. So I missed the whole high school-relationship-practice-experience-thing. When I turned sixteen, that first year, about a week after my birthday, this guy, George, asked me out. Sixteen, that's significant. He was nineteen, handsome, popular, dated a lot. A lot like you. Today, I’d definitely call him a player.”

She shifted and took another deep breath. “I know he’d dated several other girls first term. I'd never heard anything other than that he wasn't really interested in a serious relationship. I was flattered, surprised. He’d picked me! We dated for a couple of weeks, and then he started pushing me to go farther. I wasn’t okay with that.”

He nodded. Sixteen-year-old girls weren’t ready for sex with an older guy like that. Especially one who pushed her into sex when she didn’t want it. Sixteen--that must be the age of consent in England.

Another deep breath. “I was going to his digs to talk to him about it. I just wanted him to be patient with me. Wait until I was ready. He was sitting outside, on a bench, with a friend of his so the friend could take a smoke break. They didn’t see me.”

This part was hard. “The friend said the only way he, George, would win the bet was if he had naked pictures. George was sure he’d get the pictures, but it would be hard to tell it was Eleanor, me, because he’d have to put a bag over my head so he could fuck me. His words. I was a joke—a tick mark on his belt. "

What the fuck? That was just messed up. He knew some guys were just assholes. He started, “Eleanor—” but she cut him off.

“When I was training for my first job, this guy, Oren, wasn’t an instructor, but he spoke in a couple of our classes. Oren was engaged. Everyone knew it. His fiancé tried to keep tabs on him and hung around a lot. She was the classic mean girl and wouldn't shut up about it. 'I'm engaged and you're not.'” She’d rubbed Eleanor’s face in it every chance she could. Ugly, nerdy Eleanor wasn't ever going to find a man as good as Oren. “But Oren cheated on her all the time. Deliberately. I know he even slept with her best friend. Her whole bridal party, in fact.”

Deep breath. “Oren singled me out. Because I’m smart, really smart. He was a chemist. He wanted me to ‘help him with his research.’” Air quotes. “He had a real ‘player’ vibe. I didn’t want to help him. I didn’t want anything to do with him. I avoided him as much as possible. He was trying to perfect a conscious knock-out drug. And he wanted to see if he could fool someone really smart, and how the drug would work on someone with my IQ.”

Joe didn’t like where this was going.

She looked hard at Joe. “I watched everything I ate and drank for weeks, but he got me.” She thought he'd finally injected the drug into her water bottle. Her voice changed. She sounded hurt—she was. “I was awake, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t resist, couldn’t say no. He picked me up out of the chair where I was sitting and dumped me on the sofa in his office, locked the door, and unzipped his pants. He yanked mine off, ripped my panties.”

“He had to…touch himself…to be able to do it, but he did wear a condom. I was screaming in my head, ‘NO,’ and I couldn’t make a sound. He just shoved in. It hurt. I could feel everything.”

“When it was over, he stood up and buttoned his pants. I was number fifty, he'd counted, and he was proud of that. He said that of all of them, all fifty of the women he'd had, I was the worst. A girl with my looks, I really should have tried harder to satisfy him. Because obviously, my looks didn’t compensate for the bad sex. He just left me there. It was over an hour before I could even move.”

Joe just stared, a mixture of horror and sympathy on his face. “Jesus, Eleanor—”

Again, she didn’t let him finish. “So my experience with players isn’t very good. Even if I could get past my past, and we had sex, that ‘player’ vibe gives me another problem.” She looked so sad. Deep breath. “I would always wonder. When you look at me, are you seeing me? Are you seeing my breasts, or comparing them with someone else’s? Are they too small? Am I too fat? Was she prettier? Of course she was. Are you just counting the number of women you've slept with? Am I new or different? Of course not.”

“Eleanor—” Would she just let him finish?

“When I touch you, kiss you, move with you—” she cupped his cheek “—I’m discovering someone new, precious. Precious enough to share myself with. That’s part of the beauty of being with someone. I don't do that easily. But that’s not what you’re doing. All the moves you’re giving me, they aren’t new to you. You’ve done them so many times. Did she come faster? Did she like this or that touch, so you have to do it for me, but I don’t like it? If I don’t, am I wrong? I’m not new or exciting. I can’t compete with your past.”

“Eleanor—” He was ready to shout her down, but he tried to be gentle. “That’s not how it works.”

“I don’t know that, do I? The ugly, nerdy girl—” She swallowed hard. Joe shook his head. “Yes, that’s always what I was told I was. Even by my friends, my family. What if I was the love of your life? The woman who would give you everything you need, everything you want? Love you forever? But that’s not what you want. A relationship. You don’t want to get to know me. You just want to fuck me.” She used the crude description of the sex act. She deliberately didn't say 'make love' because she didn't think that's what Joe would be doing with her.

“Eleanor, that’s not—” He knew he was suave. His approach wasn't predatory; it was complimentary--maybe even sweet. Respectful.

She cut him off yet again.

“Maybe that works for you, or for other women. For experienced women who know how to cope with this. Joe, the way your eyes roam, I’d always wonder if you were looking for someone better. And you'd drop me like a rock when you found her. I don’t have—I don’t know how any man will ever see me as anything else. Not when I don’t see myself as anything else.” Deep breath.

No way was he letting that go. No way. “Eleanor, I don’t look at other women when I’m with someone. I’d never do that.” His voice was indignant. Joe liked women, he liked sex, and he respected the woman he was with. He didn’t like what he was hearing about cheating. About Eleanor.

She looked very sad now. “Joe. You’ve done it. To me. You did it to me at dinner. Tonight.” She nodded --yes. 

No, he didn't believe it. He looked puzzled and his face showed it. No, he hadn’t done that. “When?” His disbelief showed in his voice.

“At dinner tonight. You were sitting between me and Max. The waiter had just taken our orders. We were talking, I was in the middle of a sentence when the woman in the red dress walked by our table.” He nodded; he knew who she was talking about. Blonde, surgically enhanced boobs, tall, leggy. The dress was short, clingy, and low cut. Stiletto heels. Hard to miss. “You stopped looking at me, listening to me. You watched her walk by, turned your body to follow her with your eyes, then you turned back and started talking to Max. Like I wasn’t even there. That’s how well I held your interest.”

Oh, shit. He remembered that now. He had done that and he had to own it. “Eleanor, I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re right to call me on it.” He knew he'd been rude and disrespectful and he was ashamed of himself.

“I’d like to, Joe. Have sex with you. I’d like to see what you’ve got. But I can’t do it. Not like this.” Her voice was soft and small and she took a deep breath that sounded like a sob. “What I want isn’t what you want. Every day I have to face the fact that I’ll probably never have what I want. Because no one—no man—wants what I have.”

With that, she stood up and walked out. Joe wanted to follow her, tell her she was wrong. She was, about being ugly and nerdy, but the other? What he wanted? What she wanted? 

She wasn’t wrong. 

Committed. That type of relationship wasn’t what he was looking for. And she was right about other men. Most men didn't want to get to know a really smart, gifted, accomplished, average-looking woman. She didn't flaunt her intelligence or demean other people with it, but it was a little hard on the ego for men when they understood her talents. Maybe once a man got to know her, the way Joe did now, he'd realize what an amazing person she was. But they never got that far, past her average looks. Joe knew that was exactly what he'd done when they first met. He'd seen mousy, average, and looked away. No interest. What a mistake he'd made!

Now he was sure he didn’t deserve Eleanor. He stayed where he was and reexamined his life choices for a while.


End file.
